Posted on 12/29/2004 5:50:28 AM PST by SandRat
It began as a lark. Two young women working in the cockpit of a Liberator bomber during World War II leave their names and addresses for the pilots to find.
"I didn't expect to hear from anybody," says Mildred Lemons, who now lives in Arivaca.
But a couple of months later, she did hear from one: Douglas Gordon Elliott, a flight engineer with the Royal Australian Air Force.
Until the war's end, he and Lemons would correspond. And then both just drifted away. "I don't know who quit first," says Lemons. "I was married. The war was over."
Suddenly, it didn't seem to be so patriotic to be writing to soldiers, even though her husband had earlier endorsed the idea.
Life went on - more than 50 years' worth. And then 19 months ago, Lemons and Elliott were reunited through an Internet search.
The letter writing has resumed. And something new has been added: phone calls between America and Australia, where Elliott still lives.
Lemons still remembers that first call. "I had never heard his voice before. It was British."
There is no talk of a face-to-face reunion. An ocean separates them. So does reality.
She is 90; he is 83 and in ill health. So she sends him cookies and he sends her postcards of Melbourne, where he lives.
It is more than enough.
"Sometimes when I feel blue, suddenly, he calls me," says Lemons, now a widow.
Born in Milwaukee, Lemons came to Tucson with her husband, Warren Buckman, in 1943.
"He had TB," says Lemons, who promptly found work at the Consolidated Vultee plant, modifying the B-24 Liberators.
While she did "a little bit of everything," her main job was installing lights in the cockpits and bomb bays.
"The girl I worked with was a little bit on the wild side," says Lemons. "She said, 'Let's put a note in the cockpit. Maybe somebody will write to us.'
"I said, no, I was married."
But when Lemons told her husband, he said to go ahead. "He said the soldiers were anxious to get mail."
The next day, the women stuck the note in the cockpit. If her workmate ever got a response, Lemons never heard about it.
But she is sure of one thing: Elliott wrote only to her.
Ten letters she got from him in all, now neatly tied up in string. He wrote about Australia, and what he weighed in stones, and how he wanted to marry and have a houseful of children, signing off every letter with a sunny, "Cheerio."
Near the war's end, Elliott wrote that he was coming to Los Angeles to ferry airplanes and wanted to see Lemons.
"That's when I wrote him that I was married."
Elliott never came to Tucson, but he did write, " 'Your husband is a real sport,' " says Lemons, who received - and answered - several more letters.
Her husband died in 1953. A year later she married Charlie Lemons. In 1979, they moved to Arivaca. Charlie died in 1997.
In May of 2003, Lemons rediscovered that stack of letters. Rick Lewis, her pastor at Faith Baptist Church in Arivaca, also read the letters.
Intrigued, he found a listing for a D.G. Elliott on the Internet, in the Melbourne white pages.
He called the number. Elliott answered. Lewis learned that Elliott was a widower with four children.
What's more, he was interested in resuming his friendship with Lemons. Two days later, he called.
"He told me, 'I can't believe you saved all those old letters,' " says Lemons, whose new stack has grown to 20 letters.
"We will do this as long as we can," she vows.
No hankies needed here..just a good feeling about kindness and good will rekindled and good deeds done ..after all these years.
"Sometimes when I feel blue, suddenly, he calls me," says Lemons, now a widow
Women: How sweet. After all these years.
Men: Has he got any money?
God bless the WW2 generation.
I lived it but I was a child...Still recall the newscasters names and voices as we huddled around the radio in the evening.
Edward R Murrow grew up in my hometown. I have always been fascinated with the post-war 40's as a time period. Those men basically recreated America. And they did it without discussing the war.
I've never met a man that will talk about it. My dad would mention some things but he never saw combat. He was an engineer building airfields. My next door neighbor did a tour flying B-17's, saw his brother get killed in another plane and did another tour flying fighters.
Now that generation is leaving us. Soon, all we will have left is the box set of Band of Brothers.
That would make a great movie. What's Tom Hanks doing?
I took a 3-day seminar a few years ago. Our instructor was a former WWII officer. He used many stories from his service to illustrate points. He told us he didn't talk about the war for years, but was finding that it was therapeutic to share the memories now. My F-I-L served in the Phillipines, and can still remember the names - First, middle and last - of his three best buddies. He has also started sharing more about the war than he did in years past. As their buddies die, many are realizing that they hold the history, and if they do not share, no one will know what evils America and the world faced, and how they were overcome.
My dad served in the Phillipines as well. He told us a few things, but not much. Dad died several years ago.
Thanks for the ping!
Nice story! Thanks.
Would make a great movie for Hallmark Hall of Fame.
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